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'Signs of a protest' pop-up show seeks signs

The poster for "Signs of a Protest" includes a photo from the Women's March in Washington showing one of the signs "Human Rights Are Not Optional" that will be shown at A1LabArts' pop up show this weekend.(Photo: submitted)

A Knoxville art gallery is hosting a weekend "pop up" show exhibiting protest signs from the recent Women's March, and is asking for people to bring their signs from that or other protests for the event.

A1LabArts hosts "Signs of Protest" 6-10 p.m. Friday, Feb. 3, and noon-2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 4, at its gallery at the Center for Creative Minds, 23 Emory Place. Artists - or those who don't consider themselves artists but have signs - are invited to bring their placards to the gallery 6-8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 2 to be included in the show.

"Signs of Protest" was the idea of artist and A1LabArts Co-Executive Director Sara Blair McNally. McNally and five other Knoxville area women drove to Washington, D.C., for the Jan. 21 Women's March. There, McNally made signs for herself and the other women. At the march, she was struck by the other signs she saw.

"I was blown away by everybody's signs," McNally said on Monday. "There was so much art in the signs, even by people who would not consider themselves artists."

McNally, who began her artistic career in film and photography but also works in mixed media, said she was inspired in Washington by "the amount of energy and positivity that you could feel" before and during the march. "There were so many different groups there who represented different ideas but we all shared that one idea that it's not OK what's happening."

Back in Knoxville, McNally decided to quickly create a show around the signs at the Washington march as well as the Women's March held the same day in Knoxville. While the call of "Signs of Protest" was inspired by the Women's March, McNally said other signs of protest are welcome.

She doesn't know how many signs will come to the gallery on Thursday. The call for art included an option for people who no longer had their signs to email an image of it to McNally by Jan. 30. She is printing some 20 submitted images as poster-style black-and-white art to include in the exhibit. McNally brought the signs she created - with slogans that include "Human Rights Are Not Optional" - back from the Washington march and will include them in the exhibit.

The signs represent "something very tangible," McNally says. "There is a different type of art quality that sort of exists in protest signs. There is something sort of intriguing." The signs are "a little more raw" that other styles of art. "They are less of a fine art, but they have that same creative process."

Knoxville artist Jody Sims with her sign during the March on Washington. A1LabArts is asking for protest signs to be part of a weekend pop-up art exhibit.(Photo: submitted)